378 · Time Lord

• CAN YOU WIN THIS WAR IN TIME?
• Take notes, this is how you title a video game. Time Lord can be anything, it could be a soulslike, it could be a platformer, it could be a metroidvania, but you gotta find out what a TIME LORD is
• In the year 2999, Earth is under attack by aliens from the planet Drakkon. They've used time travel to send their forces into four different eras of human history, aiming to change the past and weaken humanity in the present. The player takes on the role of the "Time Lord," who must defeat these invaders before January 1, 3000 AD—or risk being destroyed along with his time machine.
• Start in the Milton Bradley Time Travel Research Centre
• Progresses through four levels based on periods in human history
• Medieval England 1250
  • Boss: Dragon
• Western United States 1860
  • Sombero Man - Where the best way to fight him is to shoot him in the back…
• Caribbean 1650 AD
  • Giant Clam
• France 1943
  • Big Soldier - He’s a TANK
• After the Drakkon forces have been eliminated, the player returns to the present to do battle with the Drakkon King.
  • 3-Headed Alien
• Not a wide range of human history
• Depending on the time period the player is in, weapons such as swords, throwing knives, firearms, grenades, and laser weaponry can be used. The player begins each level unarmed, but can acquire these weapons by collecting gift wrapped packages.
• To advance to the next level, the player needs to collect five golden orbs to fuel the time machine. In each historical stage, four orbs are hidden throughout the level, while the fifth is earned by defeating a Drakkon Lord.
• The aforementioned year 3000 deadline is in effect in game. One day in present time transpires in six seconds, meaning the player has 36 minutes and 30 seconds of gameplay time to complete the game or the game is lost.
• The time limit remains in effect even when the player has returned to the present.

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 Time Lord, can you win this war in time?

00:19 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Take notes. This is how you title a video game. Time Lord can be anything. It could be a Souls-like. It could be a platformer. It could be a Metroidvania. But you just gotta find out what a Time Lord is. Yeah. I mean, that's true. Yeah, Mike, do you think so? I mean, aren't you just intrigued? Time Lord? Time Lord sounds like a badass. Okay, as someone who was not familiar with Doctor Who much until, I don't know, the David Tenet run. Oh, I didn't even think about that.

01:04 Yeah, with the David Tenet run, I was like, oh, interesting, Doctor Who. And it's the word Time Lord in that was like, what a cool title. What a cool type of, I mean, I don't know, it's like a race of people on a planet, but like, just what a cool name, Time Lord. Time Lord can either be like the hero or the villain, right? Lord usually means villain. But to be the Lord of Time? Like a warlord? Yeah, you know, but like, to be the Lord of Time sounds like a, you know, like he saves us over and over again. He's the Time Lord. Like, dying to find out who the Time Lord is.

01:40 So in the year 2,999, Earth is under attack by, yes, aliens. Once again, just like every NES video game, aliens from the planet Dracon, which I swear they've attacked us before, right? Doesn't the planet Dracon sound familiar? Anyway, they're attacking us, and they're attacking us because they've used time travel to send their forces of aliens into four different eras of human history.

02:12 Why that matters to the people of 2099, I don't know. Well, they're changing history to make humans more weak in the future, right? Yeah, but like, this is my major problem with this game already, is that like, you have, if you're gonna do something about time travel, you have to make it self-descriptive. Like, you have to have it work. And I don't think this works. Why not? Because it's like, just like, yeah, I mean, just like, go back in time and kill, like, some, whoever decided to create the time travel entity. Well, my, my, I didn't read too much into the lore, but just based on the four eras, I thought that there was some limitation where it's like, these are the only four eras that can get to. Yeah, that's our limitation.

03:00 What do you mean? Not the Drakkon's limitation. How do you know? That's what I thought. I'm like, why would they only go to these four places? They must only be able to like, there must only be wormholes to these four places or something. I don't know. Didn't read the story, but that's my headcan. You don't think that those are just like four interesting places for the developer to land you in? Well, yeah, if I'm thinking of why the developers chose it, but that's like saying like,

03:20 oh, why didn't, why didn't Harry Potter do this? No. Because there'd be no book if he did that. It's like, no, there's gotta be a reason within the lore. I'm gonna say that unless a game decides to put forth a primer level description of what time travel is, I don't want it. I don't want it. Hmm. Or if it's gonna be about like something like Back to the Future, I at least want a mini game where you have a food fight. You need Doc. Doc's gotta be in it, or else it doesn't make any sense. Well, Joe was right.

03:51 I guess the aliens are looking to like weaken the past humans to like enslave us because we won't be as strong, but like... We're gonna be a mining colony. But they already have the ability of time travel and we only have like guns. They can't just like make us subservient now?

04:09 No, they have to go to the Wild West first. Right. It seems like we were more dangerous back then than we are now. Well, this isn't now. Now we're like having an iPad to distract ourselves. This is 2900. Who knows how much advancements we've had since... Yeah, they're probably like VR porn, you know? Like you're probably all just doing VR porn all the time. Yeah, nobody's even paying attention to what's going on in the real world. Yeah, exactly.

04:30 So anyway, the player takes on the role of the Time Lord. Unclear whether he became the Time Lord because of this moment or was already the Time Lord. Unclear if he's stealing the time travel ability from the aliens or if he just... No, there's already... Sorry, Mike, I need to stop you there. Yeah. The Milton Bradley Corporation has a time travel division. It's in the opening crawl, Mike. Yeah, that is where you actually start the game. You start the game in the Milton Bradley Time Travel Research Center. Yeah. I love that it's Milton Bradley. It's a pretty big operation for Milton Bradley.

05:04 Well, they've had a thousand years to brush up on it. They went from Barbie dolls to time travel. It's pretty damn good. Anyway, Time Lord has to defeat the aliens before January 1st, 3000.

05:17 Or, I don't know, or else something's going to happen. I don't know who said that deadline. I don't know if he like... If that's a self-set deadline, you have to set goals to get things done. That's when they win the war. Yeah, but then just go back in time again. That's what I'm talking about, Mike. I'm thinking that this... You know, you gotta use your imagination, but there's limitations to how much time... You can only go to the wild... You can only go through this portal once. You can't do it again. It's closed. It's destroyed. You die to go through multiple times. Joe, don't even get me started. I'm doing the work. I'm doing the work in my head. Joe, if your father worked on this game, just say it now.

05:49 It's totally fine. It was his life's passion was Time Lord. He wanted to shoot dogs in the 1800s. You do start in the Milton Bradley Time Travel Research Center. That's not a joke. They don't necessarily... It's just called the MB Time Travel Research Center, but we all know what that means. But there's something weird going on right from the beginning here. The only way... And maybe it's like... Maybe this is very clever. And I'm going to give it to them. I'm going to say that this is very clever. But you start the game facing in... You know, like a normal side scroller facing... Walking to the right. But everything is actually behind you. You have to go to the left, which I guess is like walking in the past.

06:33 Oh my God. Get all those orbs. So you have to collect... It's five orbs to go back in time. And they're all very easy in this first level. This first level is just designed to kind of teach you the idea of collecting these orbs and fighting some enemies before you immediately get transported back to the year 1250 in medieval England. And you're in like some castle or whatever.

06:57 This is going to be a thing. There's elves. Yeah, you're going to go through these four errors of human history. It's 1250s medieval England, 1860s western United States, 1650 Caribbeans, so the pirates, and 1943 France, which is just like... Yeah, the pirates. It's like not one of the like iconic, like generic time periods. This is just all crazy stuff. But it will lead you back to 2099... Why am I not saying that right? 2099, where you will fight the Drakon King.

07:33 But before we talk about any kind of gameplay, can we talk about these four specific eras that they've chosen? This is like nothing from the BC timeline, like nothing at all. Nothing happened interesting before 1250. The only things that will ever affect causality. Like it all kind of washes away before, I guess, 1280 or whatever. And that's when the last of the elves died. And not like the D&D kind of elves. It's like kind of tall and, you know, immortal and wise.

08:11 This is just tiny like Keebler elves that are apparently alive in 1280. So whatever they were going for here, don't know, don't know. They're mixing, they're mixing their fantasy with their sci-fi and not a fan. See, the reason that I think that we didn't go back any further, like to the BC times is because in my head canon, I think there's a limitation that doesn't let you know. My answer to everything. God, stop. It just works.

08:40 I think that even when I'm reading a book, I'm watching a movie. Hey, there's probably a limitation that we don't know about. So no, no, no complaints then from you, Joe, about the four places that they chose. I think that I think of Chrono Trigger. And I think like in a game like this, OK, it's not like some historical. It's not Assassin's Creed. Like, I just want I just want the like iconic like time travel places like take me to the Stone Age. Take me to medieval times. I'm a pirate. Fine.

09:09 The France one. I didn't get to that one. But like, what does it look like? What is it like? What does it look like? It just looks like any side scrolling like World War Two thing. That that one is the one that really throws me off. Like give me like the Ice Age or something. You're like just something where I'm like, oh, yeah, significant shift in time. Yeah. But who knows what the aliens were doing in France in 1943? Maybe they were trying to help Hitler. Could be. It's not even entirely clear which side you're fighting in in the in the World War Two era. That is true. Yeah. Who wore red in.

09:44 I guess like if we're going to if we're going to go into like like what does interfering in these specific time periods have to do with what could happen in twenty nine ninety nine. I just like I just don't really think that anything that happened in Dead Man's Gulch in eighteen sixty was going to have any effect on what was going on twenty nine ninety nine. If I feel like there should have been more either more modern stuff like, you know, maybe like, you know, Desert Storm. If that's happened yet. Did that happen yet? Have we gone there? We have not.

10:23 Shit. All right. Well, they should have gone into the future and had like an Iraq thing. You know, I think that would have been really cool. I mean, I think we haven't trying to think. Ninety ninety. Maybe I thought it was like ninety one. It's probably ninety one. It was close enough. And yeah, yeah, yeah. You're predicting the future. It was just a matter of time before we got Desert Storm.

10:45 Anyway, so now we can get into the gameplay. I guess we're going to do. Grenada. We'll see. But this is again what I'm saying. It's a very like it's a very American point of view. Right. Like this is covering some stuff that's like not particularly like world encompassing. This is very like, you know, like the wet the wild west. Yeah. And and medieval England like even medieval England. It feels kind of American. The wild west. That's the one that I'm like, what did this affect like that?

11:20 You know, for like the rest of the whole world like the other like that's the one where I'm really like that just seems so much so isolated that I'm like, what are they doing there? All right. I have I have one last thing sort of on this topic, but it does have to do with the gameplay at no point in these situations. Actually, no, there you do fight vaguely alien looking things, but you're also fighting human beings. I'm just going to stop fighting Sean just because you showed up right like people. Okay, but that that makes sense in like 1943. You got me there. But like that. Why are we why are we killing other humans when we go to visit these areas? Are they just like they don't like you because you're wearing a tank top? Why are we killing people? Wow, that is so brave of you to say.

12:16 Look, if we're going to make our enemy of aliens, then why make everybody human? I guess the aliens were the enemies we made along the way. Damn. Or maybe reversed the enemies were the aliens.

12:32 Can't say for certain. Now, depending on the time player, the time period that the player is in, you can have time period specific weapons, you know, like swords in medieval England or grenades in France.

12:46 But you don't you don't begin the level with this stuff and you don't begin the level like dressed for the appropriate time period. And I'm not trying to make this like a party thing or something. But like that could have been like another moment for this game to like shine. Right. Is like, OK, in medieval England, you're going back and you're going to be dressed like a knight and you're going to fight like a knight and you're going to have to, you know, eventually get on a horse and do some jousting or something.

13:12 But instead, it's just you're just the same old you're saying the same guy who's just wears all red, red pants, red tank, red hair, possibly red boots. They look like they have like a red stitching on those black boots, black boots. Yeah. But there's no like there's no flavor specific like the enemies are fighting you as medieval knights or as pirates, but you're not fighting back in that way. And I know what Joe said. It's not Assassin's Creed. Right. You're not like in that time period doing those things.

13:44 But then just be the awesome guy from the future, too. Right. Like be. Yeah. I was going to say that. Yeah. He's just a guy in a tank top. You do get the weapons of the time, which is like, I guess, you know, if we're going to go by Joe's theory where there's so many limitations, like maybe you can't. Yeah, it's Terminator rules. Maybe you can only. Well, no, he has his tank top, Joe. No, that's tattooed.

14:09 Stop it. Okay. He goes. He travels. A very narrow stretch of human history in full body paint. We'll go with that. And then when you're actually controlling as the Time Lord and fighting enemies, you know, this is going to sound really harsh. But did anyone else get the feeling that like Time Lord and the rest of the game exist on separate planes?

14:40 Yes. Like they don't quite. Nothing quite connects with the Time Lord. He kind of like punches through things and they take damage. Like he kind of like swipes at them, but it doesn't feel like he's ever actually doing any damage. Like enemies, like even the bosses, like stand behind him when they're like, you know, connecting. Yeah. I first noticed this in the first level, the England level where you kind of go through this marching formation where it was almost like Kung Fu where the enemies just keep, they just keep coming for you. And you just have to keep punching.

15:20 And sometimes they just walk right past you because you are shifted one or two pixels upward down on the Z axis and they can only interact with you. They're like flat landers. Whereas you as the hero kind of have a wider swath of like your hurt box than what your hit box may be. And I mean, it makes it feel a little, it makes you feel a little bit more powerful, but then there'll be random times where you will get hit. And it just feels like there's not a lot of control of whether you can dodge or not. Yeah. Now that you mentioned it, I did feel like a lot of times the hit box, the hit box was unfair in my favor.

16:07 Yeah. But like that was, you know, like a lot of enemies would be coming at me and if it was like enemy kind of near me and I swung my sword or fired my gun, it's like all the enemies that are sort of near me would just like fall off of the screen.

16:19 But that was, and like that, you know, annoying in the sense where it's like, this doesn't feel good. But like, I still was like having moments where I'm like, okay, well, at least I'm getting through this. But that was counteracted by the, the problem we have sometimes of infinite enemies always coming at you. So it's like, yeah, I can just kill these things. But like eventually one was going to hit me because like when I'm in this stretch of the level, just a hundred like little coyote dog like things are just running at me nonstop. So like, yeah, I'll get a lot of them with this unfair hit box, but I'm just going to get hit a couple of times. But yeah, I do appreciate that the time Lord has, has the advantage here.

16:56 As Joe was mentioning, like he has the larger hit box. Things can hit you and hurt you and the game isn't necessarily easy, but it's also like the game isn't about being a traditional like action game where you're just fighting enemies and getting to the end of a stage. You do have to find these time orbs or I don't really know the technical term for the time orbs, but like Joe knows.

17:19 Yeah. Time orbs. Okay, great. And you have to, you have to get four of those in the first stage. It's five because there's no boss, but you have to get four of those. And then the fifth one is hidden behind a boss. So what is the process of finding these, these orbs? Is it like they're out in the open? Is it like you have to find a specific, solve a specific puzzle? You have to like do a weird thing. How are you finding the orbs? It's random.

17:46 And it's also very unintuitive. Sometimes they'll just be right there. And sometimes they will just sort of pop into existence. Sometimes you have to solve a mini puzzle that there isn't any context for. Right. You'll have to like, because like these levels are very short.

18:06 They're very, I guess maybe short isn't the right word. They're very small in footprint. And then you'll, you'll just get to the end of the level and you'll be like, what happened? Like, I didn't see anything. I, I saw one, I saw one orb that was just like way out of range. So I'm like, obviously I can't get there yet. Um, but then you'll just keep, it's, it's very odd like that. Or it just feels very random. Yeah. It's a, it's a me, the way you get it is trial and error. It's all experimentation and it's not context based solve a puzzle, which is disappointing.

18:42 Um, there are some like, there are like two categories that I, at least in my playthrough that I've kind of like come up with. One is like categories that I could see in a, in a world where like I, I'm in the nineties and I only have a few video games and I only have access to these few video games where like they're not as I'm not defending it. But in this world, like, I feel like, oh, this isn't as, uh, much of a slap in the face if it's like, oh, I, I gotta figure this out. Then I'm my next play through. I know how to get this one. I gotta figure that one out. I get how it would be less obnoxious.

19:20 Like back then, there are other categories of this where it's just like, I don't even know what I did to get it. But like, there are some where I'm just like, there are some where I'm just like, this one's out of reach. I went on to the rest of the level and I come back and like, oh, now it's there. I must've done something. Like, I don't know. There's, there's like, I'm not completely opposed to the idea of like, oh, you have to figure out what you gotta do by trial and error. It's not as cool to me as actually solving a puzzle. But that's only if like, yeah, if I care enough about this game to keep playing it and like want to figure it out.

19:53 Which like through today's lens, I really don't. And then on top of that, there are just these other ones where I'm just like, this wasn't even a puzzle. It just, even though there was something I did that made it happen, I don't know what did. The game didn't do anything to indicate what that was. So to me, it's just completely random. To the player, it's completely random. Even if, even if whoever coded this knows like, oh yeah, there's all these connecting tissues that like, that, that make this happen. So I'm not exactly sure what they were going for with this.

20:24 And then the boss is at the end of each stage. It takes a bit of a weird path here because first in medieval England, at the end, the boss is a dragon. And it's like, oh, okay.

20:34 So there's some fantasy elements here. Like I guess in this reality, dragons were real and we fought them just like the knights did. And we're going to fight it. No big deal. Sounds great. Then you get to the, the wild west. And at the end, it's just a really like, I'm just a Mexican dude. Yeah. But it's pretty racist too. It's pretty unsavory. Like it's not, I don't like that one bit. And the worst part about, it's just a, it's, it's a Mexican man with a sombrero, obviously in a very unflattering depiction of it. But the, the sombrero man, the, the best way to fight him is to shoot him in the back too. Like that feels like political commentary in some way or another.

21:18 So you have that going on. And then in the Caribbean, it's like a giant clam. It's like, well, we already established that like dragons were possible. And a giant clam. Yeah. Why not cracking? Right. That's what I'm saying. It's like a giant clam. Isn't necessarily the most fearsome thing. Like you could have had. Maybe they were going with like the orbs or pearls and maybe it's a time clam. Yeah. But then they all should. Oh my goodness. Stop with that.

21:46 I like the time clam idea. And I do like the pearl thing. I like where you were going with that, but then they all should have been tied to that. I like the dragon. It should all have just been clams. Right. The dragon should have had like a pearl at the end of its tail or something. I don't know. Or they all could have been clams. I miss that. That's funny. And then in France, 1943, the boss at the end is just a big soldier.

22:13 Yeah. You don't remember him? Again, what side are we fighting? Yeah. Just the biggest soldier. Is he let, what was the bear from Inglourious Bastards? Is that who it is? Like. Oh yeah. It was just Eli Roth. Yeah. Okay. Sure. And then obviously after you collect all the pieces and go back to fight the Dracon King, it's just a three-headed alien. Everybody saw it coming. Well, I mean, they, you know, they tell you it's aliens. So one would assume. But I just assumed that you would be fighting aliens throughout and not people.

22:48 The three-headed alien though is really funny because it's not like some epic, weird looking thing from the future. It's not Geiger like everything else. It's just, it's just like three heads all like attached to each other. It looks like, it looks almost like a Venus flytrap three times. Like. Yeah. Is it even one alien or is it just three aliens? I think it's one alien with three heads. Huh. Oh yeah. Okay. I'm scrubbing through. So it looks like, yeah, it starts out connected. And then after your fight, they like disconnect. I thought you had the design Bible on you.

23:22 My dad's got that locked away in the attic. So I wasn't able to access it. And you know what happens after you defeat the aliens? The essential games list. I'm just kidding. You're greeted with a single still that just says Time Lord. And then it's a bunch of pictures of the Time Lord. Like punching or swinging a sword. It's not even like from all the various time periods. It's just two of them. Just two of them. And mostly him punching too, which is like, yeah, he could do that whenever he wanted to.

23:53 So what do you think Time Lord does after this? Like, does he have a job anymore? Like, is he still a Time Lord? Because apparently that was the only time that people decided to, that some alien decided to attack humanity in all of time. So it does say at the end that he has to guard against their return. So we are thinking that he maybe didn't fight the big bad. Maybe this was just the beginning of the Time Lord franchise. You got any sequels and spinoffs for us? Sequels and spinoffs. There is Lord of Time. No. There's The Legend of Zelda, Ocarina of Time.

24:34 Time splitters. But there is something that we didn't talk about in this game, of course. Yeah. And I'm sure you were itching to get to it, Joe, because you teased it last week. I sure did. There is a, you know, there is a deadline of the year 3000 in effect in this game. And you start the game on January 1st, 2,999.

24:54 So you have a whole year to do this, but you're traveling through time. And one day in present time transpires in six seconds of gameplay. So you only have 36 minutes and 30 seconds of gameplay time to complete the game. Is that enough time? I mean, I don't like time limits that are just in a level, let alone just like a time limit for the whole game.

25:22 I can see if a game is like... Nobody can expand this game to be longer than that. There's no way to like have any more time with this game than the 36 minutes and 30 seconds. Right, right. And like, I could see if a game is really built around that. And I guess you can argue, oh, this is because it's like you got to find things in time. But like, it's really not built around it. The gameplay doesn't like really support this. So it just feels like a weird hindrance. I think that it does because the, again, I was talking about how small the levels are. Uh, and the fact that there's like randomization going on. Like, it's built in a way that you find these really stupid hidden puzzles.

26:02 And then over time you'll find, you'll know where to look. And it's sort of like an optimization game. I don't have an issue with timed games. Like, I kind of liked, uh, uh, I can't even think of the name of the game. Outer Wilds. No, the, uh, well, yeah. I mean, that's part of it. But like Outer Wilds, that feels so much more built to be that. Sure, it's more central. Uh, I'm thinking of the zombie game. Uh, you know the zombie game, right?

26:36 Dead Rising. That was built around a time limit. I mean, it was a lot more like you could ignore it more in this, um, because it sort of gave you time to screw around. Um, but I don't have an issue with, with like the time loop as a reason to, uh, to try and experiment. I think I just, I, it's not a perfect execution, obviously. And also, I just don't like the reasoning of it in the whole context of time travel. I will always say that it does not make any sense that the time where in your origin is still moving forward while you're doing stuff in these other times because time doesn't exist.

27:25 And I, guys, can you pick up for this? I think what Sean's trying to say is that, um, time travel is a lot like AI. It's a slippery slope. It sounds cool. It sounds like we should all do this. And then once we start implementing it, we realize what a big mistake we've made. That's perfect. I don't have an argument for why time is moving forward, even though we've gone back in time. Why is the current present day moving forward?

27:54 Uh, yeah. What'd your dad have to say about that, Joe? I'll have to ask him. Um, but as far as the, uh, the actual gameplay mechanics, I get what you're saying about it. It, it is sort of designed around it. And like, I guess I agree. It is designed around it. I just, I just don't think it's designed well around it. Like I would like it if it's going to do this thing where it's like, oh, you got to figure out a puzzle in a certain amount of time.

28:16 The fact that they're not real puzzles combined with the time limit where it's like, I just got to do trial and error. That doesn't feel like a fun way for it to like, I would be more open to it if it was like, oh, there's an actual like escape room, like puzzle. Like I'll figure out what to do or like a little clue and you know, whatever a puzzle where I got to figure it out using my brain, not using just like random try over and over again, where then I can like feel that pressure of like times ticking.

28:41 Can I figure this out within a half hour? Can I figure all these different little things out? So I feel like they, they, they went, I guess there, but they didn't go like all the way to make the, to make the time ticking feel worth it for me and not just frustrating. Well, there's only one direction in time to go when you're in reality or in a podcast, actually in a podcast, you can hit rewind or fast forward. And if you fast forward five seconds from now, you would hear me say the essential games list.

29:12 No, I think I was trying to set up at the beginning of this episode that like the idea of a time Lord is really cool, but man, they went absolutely nowhere with it. Like, holy shit. The time Lord doesn't dress cool. He doesn't fight cool. He just punches. This, this guy didn't have to be a time Lord. This game didn't have to be about time travel. This game could have been so many other things that would have explained something, but it wouldn't have teased you as hard as time Lord does.

29:38 Time Lord really made me think I was going to play something awesome. I played something that at the end of the day is playable. Even if the orbs are kind of frustrating to find, um, you can play the levels, but it is weird that you're like restricted and how much fun you're allowed to have because of this overall time limit.

29:58 Um, I think an overall time limit on a game is actually somehow worse than individual time limits in a level. And for that reason alone, I can't put this on the essential games list. Joe? Kind of strange. When I first like looked at, Oh, what are the upcoming games I got to play? And I saw a time Lord. I had this thought of like, wow, I better really get started on this early because I've heard of time Lord and somewhere in the back of my head, I know it's this like sprawling epic, critically acclaimed game.

30:25 I don't know what I was thinking of. I, I, I played, I mean, then I looked at it literally can't be longer than 36 minutes. So I don't know why I thought this was going to be like some giant RPG somewhere. I must be thinking of some other title that's similar. You were thinking of Planescape Torment. That's exactly what I was thinking of.

30:44 But I, so it really was even, it was like double, doubly disappointing going into it with that expectation and coming in and finding this, like, this like really generic is a weird word because it does, it is unique, but it's kind of boring. It doesn't really, yeah, it, it doesn't feel like, I don't, I don't want to say like, it doesn't feel like a ton of love was put into this game, but it doesn't feel like a ton of love was put into this game. At least like, at least from a modern perspective, but yeah, it wasn't particularly fun. I'm sorry, dad. I know you worked really hard on it, but I can't vote this essential.

31:17 All right. So that's one less seat at Thanksgiving dinner, Sean. So when I, when we started recording this podcast, I actually went back in time and, and tried to, you know, I picked 1956 when Joe's dad was born.

31:41 1321, which I believe was some, some kind of ancestor to Joe at first had the idea of, whoa, video games is going to plug stuff in and like things will show up. Like, and then he kind of had a stroke and died. Like I was trying to save him. Um, and I, I was doing all these things, but alas, it's only been like 30 minutes. So I did not have enough time to do all that. So time Lord is still a bad game.

32:13 And that's not to say that it doesn't have ideas. I don't think that a timed game is a disqualifier. I think it's at least a unique concept. Uh, I just don't like the, uh, you know, the, the reasoning behind it and any of the character designs or the story or any of it. So no, not essential. All right. There you have it. I love the idea that like, in order for my dad to have become a video game developer, like our whole family history has to be about like discovering video games. It was just like a family thing. Yeah. Next week, basketball reaches its peak form. When we play ultimate basketball, there will be no greater form of basketball than ultimate basketball. This is it. I think this is actually the one where Goku goes super saiyan four.

33:00 Wow. Uh, yeah. All anime is the same. So basketball anime must be the same as well. And if you're tired of, you know, some pretty bad games like time Lord and presumably ultimate basketball, uh, know that we have a whole nother podcast on our Patreon, patreon.com slash nostalgia. We do the nostalgia bites there where we play Famicom games. What? Yeah, that's right. Famicom games, games in Japanese. Or whatever game that Mike decides to make us play. Oh, but that's not part of the pitch. That's not fun. Or whatever. You know, it is fun listening to those episodes. Oh, I thought you were just going to go to the song. That's a fun song.